Madness
by odds fish
Summary: When she left, it was with every intention of coming back. Short, semi-pretentious SI spinoff. :P Enjoy.
1. Daisy Chains and Laughs

Madness  
1. Daisy Chains and Laughs

When she left, it was with every intention of coming back.

She had informed the chamberlain that morning. "Haskill," she said, "it has been half a year since I entered this plane, and certain people in Tamriel may have wondered where I am. I must leave for a while, to sort out unfinished business."

The chamberlain gave her one of his looks, as if he wasn't entirely sure if this was the best idea, but he said, "I understand, my Lord. What shall be done about... visitors, while You are away?"

"See that guards are dispatched, if need be. I will not suffer intruders in My realm."

"Very good, my Lord."

"Do not trouble yourself too much, Haskill," she said. "I shall return within the month, and when I do I intend to seal the Door. No one will enter My Isles unless _I_ summon them here, to Madness."

"As You say, my Lord. Shall I have Your gear assembled?"

She packed light, and left much the way she'd come six months ago, in patched fur and scratchy felt, a bow on her back and a dagger at her waist. She left her staff and princely raiment in Passwall, to wait for her until she returned. The table and the metronome still sat by the Door at the top of the hill. But the guard on the other side had gone, and brown Khajiit bones littered the gate platform.

Walking to shore she breathed the air of her native plane. It smelled of rain and breeze and Bravil. Not all pleasant, not all unpleasant. She'd grown up with these smells, and they never changed. In her Isles, the smells were always different, all the time, refracting with her whims like light through a prism. Everything was like that in her Isles, floating, drifting, bubbles and fishes in a bowl of paints.

None of them had been sure what would happen when she took the throne. A mortal she was, they thought, not a daedroth, and would she die like other mortals? What powers did she have? They doubted her, like all followers doubted.

She sat down beside a boulder on the shore to rest and contemplate. Doubters, she thought. They were weak, and stupid, and afraid. She knew she would not die. It had come to her as she sat on her throne for the first time, as the smells and sounds and colors of her Isles whirled lazily around her center. She prodded them, pinched them, peeled them, and they resonated at her touch. The doubters could have their doubts. She ruled the Isles. She was Sheogorath.

She thought she would see the way of the Empire before closing it off forever, and for the next month, she breathed Tamriel. Muddy brown Tamriel. Foggy gray Tamriel. Beer and sweat. Bitter and sweet. Salt swamps, snow, and sewers. The aging empire that she had saved, once, and that had forgotten her as quickly as it had itself. The provinces were breaking off one by one like frostbitten fingers, and the blackened palm festered with infection and cancer. Immigrants and refugees poured in from all sides; legionnaires struggled to keep any peace at all as small armies of outlaws marauded the roads; upjumped councilors, drunk on newfound power, ripped up the land and wealth like so much meat, while petty nobles scrabbled at the offal they left behind. The Empire boiled like piss in a pot, and no one was sure what anyone else was doing or why. When she felt she'd seen enough, it was a simple matter for the Champion of Cyrodiil to stage her own suicide.

She left the note in the bedroom of her Skingrad manor for anyone who might have cared enough to read it. _Don't try to find me_, it said. _I am walking into Niben Bay, and I am not walking out_. (It was even true, sort of.) She wrote it with the spare ink she found stored in her basement, the wells upstairs dry from months of disuse. The basement room was abandoned. She supposed she should not have suspected differently. Still, she wondered where her maid had gone, and hoped she was somewhere happy, wherever that could be. Perhaps she would greet her in the Isles, a child of Madness.

That night, when everything was finished, she left Skingrad hooded and cloaked. There was one thing still left to do. She made her way to the Imperial City to say goodbye.

She moved slowly and invisibly, taking care that the contents of her heavy sack did not clank and alert any waiting bandits to her presence. She caught sight of the city just as dawn was breaking behind it, and crossed the bridge to the city isle as morning spread across the sky. Beautiful as it was, she couldn't say she would miss any of it. She had mornings of her own now, to do with as she would. In any case, that wasn't why she was here.

They still hadn't put the roof back on, but then she didn't really see how they could. She sat by his foot. Laid a hand on it.

"Martin," she whispered to the air. The last emperor of Tamriel. He'd given his own life to save it, just so it could tear itself apart once he'd gone. She sat there for a long while, until the Temple was crowded with cityfolk and the sun was high in the sky. If she'd still been mortal, she reflected, she might have missed him, though he'd have been the only one. But Daedric Princes did not miss mortals, and now it was time to go.

She left by way of the Waterfront District, walking invisibly out onto the water, south to Niben Bay. When she reached the mouth of Lake Rumare, she emptied her sack into the water. She paused briefly to watch the armor sink, the armor of emperors. It shouldn't have been given to her, she thought as it disappeared into the depths; Ocato should have worried himself about other things. Like keeping the Empire together.

But the Empire did not matter anymore. She was coming back to her realm, her Isles, and once she closed the Door she wouldn't look back. She walked on, south to the island as the sun of Nirn set upon her one final time.

When she got there, the Door was gone.


	2. The Dam Breaks Open

A/N: Hey everybody, thank you all for your reviews! It hadn't occurred to me before your comments that this could work as a one-shot, and it does. But I'd planned a little more. Still keeping it short, more like a three-or-four-shot, depending on... things. So anyway, here we go.

Madness  
2. The Dam Breaks Open

She didn't believe it, not at first. She consulted her map, wandered around on the water for an hour or five, dove beneath the surface to see if it had sunk maybe -- before coming to the realization that it had, in fact, disappeared. Bewildered, she headed for shore.

She sat down on the sand and thought. It wasn't just the Door. The entire island was gone. No mushroom trees, no Khajiit bones, not even a speck of dirt. As if none of it had ever existed.

But it _had_ existed. She'd _been_ there, spent half a year of her life on the other side of the Door, in the Isles, _her_ Isles. She was Sheogorath, Daedric Prince of Madness...

Had it all been a dream?

It didn't make sense. More importantly, she didn't understand; things didn't have to make sense to be understood. In any case, it was _wrong_. The ring on her finger -- it was Hirrus's ring, from Crucible, the one she'd found in his room in after pushing him to his death. Certainly it still worked, and hadn't disappeared; it was how she'd been walking all over the bay for the past few hours.

No, the Door _couldn't_ be gone. If the ring existed, then the Isles existed, _her_ Isles existed, and she'd been there to get the ring. That meant her memory was right, and she was Lord of the Isles, and who but the Madgod could close the gate -- let alone _make the whole sodding island disappear_? It _couldn't_ be gone. She refused to believe it. All she could think was that it must have been moved, somehow. But moved where? Who knew?

She tried to summon a Saint. When it appeared, she smiled. See, she could still do that, too. But when she tried asking it _where was the Door_, it stared at her blankly, sword and shield at the ready, before gradually fading back into Oblivion.

She tried again, and again, then tried summoning Seducers, but to no avail. Not a one would speak when commanded to. She fell back on the shore, groaning in frustration. The Door had moved. Who knew? Who knew?

Haskill. Haskill would know. Haskill knew _every_thing, and if he didn't he could ask Dyus, who did. But she couldn't summon him outside the Isles, and she couldn't get to the Isles to summon him. So how to talk to him? How?

An idea struck her. A mad idea, of course, but mad ideas were always the best kind. She rose from the shore and headed off southwest.

It was barely dawn by the time she reached her shrine, but a flock of mad followers already milled around her statue. "Good madfolk," she said, "might I trouble you for a head of lettuce, a skein of yarn, and a lesser soul gem?" She'd been here long ago; she knew what she liked; she didn't have to be told.

The Dunmer glanced up. "What've you got to trade?"

"An apple, a fork, a dagger, some cheese."

The Dunmer's eyes lit up. "I'll have the fork," he said. He took it and stuck it in his hair, and then he gave her what she asked for. She took the offerings and placed them on the altar, praying to herself that this would work.

It did not. Frustrated, she prayed again. And again.

The Dunmer appeared over her shoulder. "Are you sure you're doing it right?" he said. "I don't think it will work. It isn't even raining."

"Of course it will work," she said. "It has to work. I don't care if it isn't raining."

"Oh, but _He_ does."

"I _am_ He. I am the Madgod. _I'm_ Lord Sheogorath. And I don't _care_ if it isn't raining."

The Dunmer giggled. "Oh, that's good!" he said. "You know something?" He leaned in conspiratorially. "I'm Lord Sheogorath, too."

"No! You didn't hear me properly," she said, taking a step back. "I rule Madness. I am the Madgod!"

"Of course you are. And so am I. I'm the Madgod, too."

The others caught on and began to join in. She couldn't understand. These were her subjects, her worshipers. If she had her staff, her princely raiment, then they would realize. Then they would _believe_. But she didn't have them, and she couldn't get them, and Haskill would not speak to her, and they all thought this was some sort of game, a mad joke.

As the madfolk laughed and reveled around her, she sat down on the bench and wept. She was lost. She didn't know what to do. There was no way she, the Madgod, could go back to live amongst the mortals. It wouldn't be right, and besides, her life as a mortal was over, the story closed. Her manor was abandoned; her Imperial Dragon armor lay at the bottom of Lake Rumare. She'd staged her own _suicide_, for the Isles' sake. There was no way she could go back. No way. And even if she could, she didn't want to. Tamriel was no longer her home.

Home was the Shivering Isles now. It was her place, her right. Anything that had ever mattered to her had happened there. She had taken the greenmote, bathed in the blood of her enemies, and had known ecstasy. She had seen the ruined city of Passwall, the forces of Order polluting the realm, and had known despair. She had seen the Gatekeeper born again, had sat on her throne and watched over her children, had walked the winding paths of her Isles under tangerine trees and marmalade skies -- and had known love. It was too much to leave, too much to have simply disappeared. The Isles were _her_, and she was them, and she had to find them, to get back and set things right.

And then, drying her eyes, she decided. If no one would direct her to them, she would search the Isles out herself. No matter how long it took, no matter how much it cost or how far she had to travel, she would find her Isles again. And she would start now.

She left her children to their games, and with such thoughts walked off into the morning sunlight.


	3. No One Seems to Hear

Madness  
3. No One Seems to Hear

They call her Mad Martina, and she wanders the streets of Bravil.

That isn't her real name, of course, "Mad Martina." They call her after the last of the Septims, the bastard one, the one whose two-minute reign and grand apotheosis heralded the end of the Empire. That was so many years ago now that nobody alive remembers it. Not even Mad Martina remembers it. But she's so incredibly _old_, and the rumors say she was alive when all of it happened, so people call her Martina. Nobody knows her real name. Not even Mad Martina knows her real name.

As for the other part, well, she's mad.

* * *

A lot of beggars were beggared in the last three-quarters of a century since the Oblivion Crisis, and Bravil has always been an asylum for them. Even more so now, as it's got good thick walls around it, and anybody with any sense these days holes up in a walled city. In any case, Bravil is full of beggars, and full of old beggars. Two things make Martina stand out amongst the rest: first, she's older than all the other old beggars -- and looks it -- and second, she never asks for money.

She found her way in here about three years ago, her skin sunbrowned and wrinkled, tough and thick and taut, stretched over her bones like old leather. At first she didn't do much. Didn't speak. Just wandered around, gaze fixed piteously into thin air. Sometimes people would spot her rummaging around under houses, or splashing around in the filthy water, or examining the stones in the city wall.

Eventually, she must have run out of places to search, because she has since turned her attention away from Bravil and now instead focuses on the people in it. She approaches you hesitantly, almost regretfully, and in a hush of a voice she asks, "Please, child, please -- have you seen it? Have you seen the door? Please tell me where to find the door."

Of course no one ever has an answer.

* * *

Like most beggars, she lives a simple existence. She eats what she can, sleeps when she can, makes her rounds through town to fill the gaps in between. The other beggars protect her, take care of her. As they would take care of a grandmother. As they would protect a child.

Sometimes people come and give her trouble. The Terentius boys, mostly. The Terentius boys are that way with everyone, sons of the rich and powerful set loose in a poor, powerless world. And as the poorest of the poor, Martina makes a good target.

But the other beggars stand by for her. They drive away the Terentius boys, the army of beggars, brandishing fists and rocks. And people learn not to pick at her, the poor thing. She never hurts anyone, just stares and sleeps mostly, sometimes toys with a ring she keeps in her pocket, and asks for the door once in a while.

One night, in her sleep, she finds it.

* * *

A/N: Sorry about the wait and shortness, I have a fat paper of fatty fatness due this week and school comes first, I'm afraid. :(  
On the plus side, you get two chapters for the price of one, so yay for this.  
Change to present tense here might be random and/or uncalled for, but I felt like it fit.


	4. The Dark Side of the Moon

Madness  
4. The Dark Side of the Moon

She didn't believe it, not at first. She closed her eyes, opened them. Blinked. Again. The Door behind her was gone, closed off. The metronome was still on the table, and her Isles were still as beautiful as they ever had been. But after all her wanderings, her determination and despair, it would take more than a landscape to convince her.

It wasn't until she breathed, really _breathed_, that she understood. She inhaled the air, and with the air came the Isles. Ecstasy and agony, joy and depravity, death, life, dark, light, the nature and artifice of it all, permeated everything and flooded in and clung to her like a missing piece of her being. She knew then that she was home.

She moved dreamlike, godlike, through her realm. First she stopped in Passwall, collected her raiment and staff, greeted the Gatekeeper like a mother. She spread her arms and called forth the rain (she loved the rain) and then, unable to decide between the Manic route and the Demented, she elected to travel both on her way to New Sheoth.

None of her stubjects appeared shocked to see her as she passed. Rather, they all beamed in awe and love and joy. She was glad for this. There was no cause to bemoan the past, not with the present so full of promise and delight. Lord Sheogorath was returned to Her Realm, and the good madfolk had a Prince again.

Even the chamberlain could offer no wry looks, no barbs about her extended absence. "My Lord," he said, "welcome. Welcome home. You were away for a long time, and we missed You. But now You are back, and we welcome You. We thank You and welcome You."

"Welcome, Lord," said the Saint and Seducer guards. She smiled as she passed them, smiled as she sat her throne, and they smiled back as they had never done before.

That night the madfolk gathered in the palace courtyard. "Welcome, Madgod," they cried, the crowds of her subjects, her children. They celebrated her return with feasting and drinking and song. She watched over them through the night, fulfilled and determined and no longer old, ready to keep and protect her Isles for all the tides of eternity.

* * *

The Madgod watched it all in His mind, and smiled.

The Madhouse had many rooms, and Sheogorath was in all of them and none of them. He formed them all, surveyed them all, maintained them and contained them. He was the Sithis-shaped hole in the world, not created but born from the separation of Lorkhan. The bit about Jyggalag, however far-fetched, had been one of His cleverer notions, and it had served His purposes admirably.

Sheogorath's plane was nothing like the Shivering Isles, except for the part that was. The part that had drawn the Champion of Cyrodiil into Madness, the part that had appealed to her sense of responsibility. Now her soul found asylum there, and the Prince of Madness watched over her as He watched over all His children.

"Welcome, child," said Lord Sheogorath, almost sadly, almost contentedly. "Welcome to the Madhouse."

* * *

A/N: C'est ça. On chapter titles... I listened to a lot of Pink Floyd while writing this. :P


End file.
